David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik earned their stripes more than a decade ago for their work on two of the most popular series in television history. Crane co-created the NBC series “Friends,” while Klarik received Golden Globe and Emmy nominations as a writer and producer on another NBC show, “Mad About You.” The two got…
“Up Heartbreak Hill,” the POV documentary that premieres July 26 on PBS, is centered on two teenagers, Thomas Martinez and Tamara Hardy, who run like the wind. Not hurricane fast, but swiftly enough to place among the top finishers in state cross country and track meets; swiftly enough to attract the attention of college coaches….
For “Home on Native Land,” a beautifully presented show of provocative new work by Indigenous and Aboriginal artists at Toronto’s Bell Lightbox cultural center, curator Steven Loft channeled his Mohawk heritage. But the exhibit’s dominant themes — home, roots, historical injustice — might also speak to Loft’s Jewish identity. Aboriginal on his father’s side, Loft…
Dan Smith’s second book, “Monkey Mind,” is a warm and painful look into his life-long struggle with anxiety and paradox. The same dogged interrogation of his psyche which antagonizes and often undermines him is redirected here in service of understanding and healing. What results is a patient, emotional and often funny catalogue of how he…
Alex Kurtzman is best known for writing Big Summer Movies, the so-called tent pole films. If it has a Roman numeral in the title — “Transformers,” “Star Trek,” “Mission Impossible” — there’s a good chance that Alex and his writing partner Roberto Orsi are involved. June 29 marks the release of “People Like Us,” a…
Woody Allen’s new movie “To Rome With Love” is a montage of stories on the titillating streets of the eternal city. Allen (who hadn’t appeared in any of his films since 2006) plays Jerry, a restless, retired opera director whose world collides with Giancarlo, played to hilarity by Italy’s renowned tenor Fabio Armiliato. Roberto Benigni…
There is a heart-wrenching moment in “We Were Here,” David Weissman’s documentary about the AIDS crisis in San Francisco, which stands out from the rest of the film. Ed Wolf, an activist and one of the five people extensively interviewed by Weissman, remembers a conversation he had with the father of a hospitalized and infected…
The first time Anthony Russell heard Sidor Belarsky (1898-1975), on the soundtrack for the Coen brothers film “A Serious Man,” he thought it was Paul Robeson singing in Yiddish. Russell, an African-American classically trained operatic bass, wasn’t yet familiar with work of the Ukrainian-American opera singer and conservator of Jewish music, but he was drawn…
דער זומער איז אַן עקשן, ער וויל ניט, וויל ניט קומען, הגם אויף בייטן וואַקסן צעקווייטיקט שוין די בלומען.
